Introduction to SYMMETRY 2: Unifying Human Understanding

Symmetry 2 ◽  
1989 ◽  
pp. xi-xii
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Ian Sabroe ◽  
Phil Withington

Francis Bacon is famous today as one of the founding fathers of the so-called ‘scientific revolution’ of the seventeenth century. Although not an especially successful scientist himself, he was nevertheless the most eloquent and influential spokesperson for an approach to knowledge that promised to transform human understanding of both humanity and its relationship with the natural and social worlds. The central features of this approach, as they emerged in Bacon’s own writings and the work of his protégés and associates after 1605, are equally well known. They include the importance of experiment, observation, and a sceptical attitude towards inherited wisdom (from the ‘ancients’ in general and Aristotle in particular).


2000 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muzaffar Iqbal

This article attempts to present a comparative study of the role of two twentieth-century English translations of the Qur'an: cAbdullah Yūsuf cAlī's The Meaning of the Glorious Qur'ān and Muḥammad Asad's The Message of the Qur'ān. No two men could have been more different in their background, social and political milieu and life experiences than Yūsuf cAlī and Asad. Yūsuf 'Alī was born and raised in British India and had a brilliant but traditional middle-class academic career. Asad traversed a vast cultural and geographical terrain: from a highly-disciplined childhood in Europe to the deserts of Arabia. Both men lived ‘intensely’ and with deep spiritual yearning. At some time in each of their lives they decided to embark upon the translation of the Qur'an. Their efforts have provided us with two incredibly rich monumental works, which both reflect their own unique approaches and the effects of the times and circumstances in which they lived. A comparative study of these two translations can provide rich insights into the exegesis and the phenomenon of human understanding of the divine text.


2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A. Livingston ◽  
Caelan R. Garrett ◽  
Zhuming Ai

Author(s):  
Nicholas Jolley

This chapter addresses the issue of whether Locke’s own empiricist theory of ideas offers, as Locke often suggested, a more intelligible way of explaining human understanding than Malebranche’s doctrine of Vision in God. Drawing on Locke’s statements about the corpuscularian hypothesis, it argues that although the empiricist theory may satisfy some criteria of intelligibility, it is forced to recognize the existence of processes that are ‘incomprehensible’; to that extent, Locke’s theory of ideas runs parallel with his mature philosophy of matter. The epistemic status of the empiricist theory of ideas is thus more problematic than it is often taken to be.


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